Ava Farhadi, a 33-year-old postdoctoral researcher from Iran, poses for a portrait with an Iranian flag in her home in Lafayette, Ind., Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Obed Lamy)

By AMY TAXIN, ED WHITE, CLAIRE GALOFARO and SAFIYAH RIDDLE

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Many in the Iranian American diaspora spent several days glued to their televisions, watching the news of U.S. and Israeli bombs falling on Iran, some clinging to hope it might bring a brighter future to their homeland but terrified their relatives will suffer in a new Middle East war with no certain end.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran for decades while violently crushing dissent, was killed early in the attack. In the United States, many celebrated, some popped Champagne, some downed shots of tequila, some took to the streets to cheer the toppling of a ruler they considered a tyrant.

“We are happy, we are happy that he is gone and he can’t kill our innocent people anymore,” said Ava Farhadi, 33, an electrical engineer in Indiana. In January, Farhadi’s family participated in protests against their government, which were met with a brutal crackdown. While her immediate family was unhurt, Farhadi said, friends and close loved ones were among the thousands killed when security forces opened fire on peaceful protesters.

Many said they are worried for their families still there and for what the future holds.

Roozbeh Farahanipour, a Los Angeles restaurant owner who was jailed and tortured following the 1999 student protests in Iran, said he’s felt a swirl of emotions.

He celebrated when he heard Khamenei was killed in the initial U.S. and Israeli strikes. “I open a bottle of Champagne and drink it up,” he said. “That was a happy moment but we are looking at what happens next.”

Deaths have mounted as the bombardment continued into Monday, claiming U.S. service members and Iran civilians. Farahanipour said he mourns for them.

Between 400,000 and 620,000 people of Iranian ancestry live in the U.S., according to the University of California Los Angeles, the vast majority of them in California. Farahanipour’s restaurant is in a part of Los Angeles nicknamed Tehrangeles — the heart of the Iranian diaspora in the U.S. — where Iranian flags hang outside shops selling everything from books to rugs.

‘We want democracy’

Nearby, Todd Khodadadi, the 47-year-old owner of Tochal Market, said he and his family lived under the regime in Iran until they fled more than two decades ago and started over in the U.S.

Khodadadi said he’s been glued to news apps and group chats with friends in Iran. Even as bombs rained down, the weekend’s violence still doesn’t compare to the scale and severity of what Iranians have suffered for years on end, he said, surrounded in his store by boxes of date-filled pastries and rice cookies affixed with stickers reading “Free Iran.”

“The people in Iran, they live in hell,” he said. “We want democracy, we don’t want one person sitting in one chair for decades and decades and control everything.”

It has been difficult for many to communicate with their loved ones still in their homeland. Phone and internet connections aren’t reliable.

“It’s eerie, it’s very eerie to see these terrible scenes of Iranians crying over dead relatives and their destroyed homes,” said Shahed Ghoreishi, 34, a foreign policy analyst whose parents fled Iran and still has many relatives there. “And you’re like, wait, does my family live on that street? How close are they to that bomb? Then you try to geolocate where your family lives and where the bombs are dropping on TV at the same time.”

His mother told him she hasn’t slept because she can’t reach her sister, who recently had back surgery. The Iranian people were already suffering shortages of food and medicine because of strict sanctions imposed on the country and Ghoreishi worries not only that they could be killed by the bombardment, but also that they won’t be able to access life-sustaining necessities as the war drags on.

Ghoreishi, who was fired from his role at the U.S. State Department last year after some questioned his loyalty to the administration’s policies in the Middle East, said he doesn’t see how this will end with lasting change for the Iranian people.

“I don’t see a clear strategy and I see a lot of violence, and those two things make me pessimistic for this moment,” he said.

He hopes that he’s wrong. So does Mahdis Keshavarz, 49, who fled Iran as a child and works now in social justice advocacy in Los Angeles >>>